The Truth About Boys and Girls

If you’ve been paying attention to the education news lately, you know that Ameri­can boys are in crisis. After decades spent worrying about how schools “shortchange girls,” the eyes of the nation’s education commentariat are now fixed on how they shortchange boys. In 2006 alone, a Newsweek cover story, a major New Republic article, a long article in Esquire, a “Today” show segment, and numerous op-eds have informed the public that boys are falling behind girls in elementary and secondary school and are increasingly outnumbered on college campuses. A young man in Massachusetts filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, arguing that his high school’s homework and community serv­ice requirements discriminate against boys. A growth industry of experts is advising educators and policymakers how to make schools more “boy friendly” in an effort to reverse this slide.

It’s a compelling story that seizes public attention with its “man bites dog” characteristics. It touches on Ameri­cans’ deepest insecurities, ambivalences, and fears about changing gender roles and the “battle of the sexes.” It troubles not only parents of boys, who fear their sons are falling behind, but also parents of girls, who fear boys’ academic deficits will undermine their daughters’ chances of finding suitable mates.

But the truth is far different from what these accounts suggest. The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it’s good news about girls doing better.

In fact, with a few exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before. But girls have just improved their performance on some meas­­­ures even faster. As a result, girls have narrowed or even closed some academic gaps that previously favored boys, while other long-standing gaps that favored girls have widened, leading to the belief that boys are falling behind.

There’s no doubt that some groups of boys—particularly Hispanic and black boys and boys from low-income homes—are in real trouble. But the predominant issues for them are race and class, not gender. Closing racial and economic gaps would help poor and minority boys more than closing gender gaps, and focusing on gender gaps may distract attention from the bigger problems facing these youngsters.

The hysteria about boys is partly a matter of perspective. While most of society has finally embraced the idea of equality for women, the idea that women might actually surpass men in some areas (even as they remain behind in others) seems hard for many people to swallow. Thus, boys are routinely characterized as “falling behind” even as they improve in absolute terms.

In addition, a dizzying array of so-called experts have seized on the boy crisis as a way to draw attention to their pet educational, cultural, or ideological issues. Some say that contemporary classrooms are too structured, suppressing boys’ energetic natures and tendency to physical expression; others contend that boys need more structure and discipline in school. Some blame “misguided feminism” for boys’ difficulties, while others argue that “myths” of masculinity have a crippling impact on boys.3 Many of these theories have superficially plausible rationales that make them appealing to some parents, educators, and policymakers. But the evidence suggests that many of these ideas come up short.

Unfortunately, the current boy crisis hype and the debate around it are based more on hopes and fears than on evidence. This debate benefits neither boys nor girls, while distracting attention from more serious educational problems—such as large racial and economic achievement gaps—and practical ways to help both boys and girls succeed in school.